He has the, the killer instinct to be a champion at, at any and all levels.

He certainly does, and he lived up to every single essence of that word.

I think, you know, we've been reviewing this week really as, as, you know, World Aquatics somewhat throwing caution to the wind on how they were approaching the last and, uh, the third and final stop.

But you gotta take your hat off to the team at World Aquatics, you know, led by John Bailey and, and Nam, sorry, Nami as well, who's done a fantastic job, uh, on the pool side.

But, you know, a lot of work has gone into that, and it paid dividends in the, in the back end of that race and it, and it provided Kodzia, who you've been saying for a number of weeks now, lives for those moments.

The moment came, he rose to it, and ultimately, as much as it wasn't, uh, Igor's moment in the 50 backstroke, he also rose to the occasion to get himself there.

I think that's something that we can progress to as a sport.

Well, I'm excited for that.

It's a friendly rivalry with McEvoy and Kornev, but it might have just got a, a little bit more heated, and they'll race off together tomorrow in the 50 free, which I can't wait for.

Yeah, I'm not too worried about Kornev.

I think if you weren't old enough to watch Ian Thorpe win in Athens, then you've got plenty of swimming ahead of you, and that's exactly where Kornev is, um, as, as you called, like plenty... not only for the rest of his career, but for the rest of the meet.

Um, but yeah, it, yeah, capped it off.

But also, I mean, it's hard to go past, uh, the big change in night one.

It was the introduction of Maurie Steenbergen into the 200 freestyle.

Just saying, not on air, just off air, that, uh, it almost felt like she was, uh, you know, tempting Siobhan Haughey into trying to win the race and each time saying no.

For somebody like Luke Barr, if he can deliver again over the next two days, might, might pull close to 70,000 USD.

And of course, $1.2 million total available across the World Cup Tour means that the best swimmers are gonna come in and bring their best form.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's one of those great initiatives that's been introduced over the last couple of years, which has taken those World Cups to the next level, which you've talked on.

One of those new changes to come into this year is the new wildcard system, which we've talked through.

So the top three with an A standard at any stop, or sorry, at two of the three stops, it's a little bit confusing how it's going to work, but they go direct is a ticket to Beijing.

So how do you see that playing out?

So those swimmers coming from the Asian Games are ready to go and ready to swim fast.

it's a lot to look forward to that's for sure and that's only the first stop and as we know we expect to see some more athletes join in stop two and three as we've talked through the wildcard system you can qualify from racing two of those three stops and obviously the there is the crown up for grabs but there's also the crown busters which we'll be looking for as we move to that third stop but You did mention Kornev there.

Where do you think technology will play a role into the future of the sport?

Oh, that's, that's a great question.

And, um, yeah, I guess, uh, it- it's, it's sort of it's how long's a piece of string.

If I could tell you those answers, I'd probably be designing the technology and getting paid for it.

Um, so I can't give you everything, but I think ultimately there's, there's some really interesting trends that are coming from across the world.

Obviously, swimming itself and open water swimming is a unique space to be in, but I think we can take some sort of parallels from other ocean sports, whether that's skiing or sailing, and SailGP has sort of been at the industry lead of on-water tech.

So I think there's two things.

So now as president, where do you see the event heading over the next decade?